The present invention relates to a box formed from a single piece of cardboard and defining in its interior a pocket into which, during the manufacture of the box, a leaflet can be inserted illustrating the product which is later to be placed therein by the firm which utilizes the box. The term xe2x80x9cillustrative leafletxe2x80x9d means any sheet, possibly folded several times on itself, carrying writing and instructions relative to the product contained in the box, or a card extractable from the pocket and having images or writing of any type reproduced on it.
Many products or articles are housed, preserved and transported in boxes or holders normally made of cardboard. Very often, illustrative leaflets or the like are also inserted into these boxes. A frequent case is that in which the articles or products inserted into the boxes are containers of various kinds, bottles, or flat packs defining a plurality of recesses containing pharmaceutical products: in this case, the leaflets illustrating the pharmaceutical product must compulsorily be present in the actual boxes into which the bottles, containers or the like are inserted.
In the usual known art, the boxes are produced by specialist firms, the pharmaceutical industry (or another box user) then directly inserting the bottles or the like into them together with the illustrative leaflets: this operation is relatively laborious and slow, especially as a result of the difficulties encountered in inserting the leaflet (often of large dimensions and folded over several times) into the box in such a manner that it still allows the bottle to be freely inserted without the leaflet becoming creased.
To obviate these problems boxes have been proposed formed from a single piece of cardboard and defining in their interior a pocket into which the illustrative leaflet is inserted directly by the manufacturer of the box, the user of which has then merely to insert the articles (bottles or others) which the box is to contain.
The leaflet must be retained securely inside each box so that it does not interfere with the article inserted into the box by the user. Moreover, the box must be of such a structure that the illustrative leaflet can be inserted very easily and quickly by the box manufacturer, directly during the box forming process.
GB-A-2277077 (see FIGS. 3 and 4) and DE-A-3208777 (see FIG. 2) describe boxes, into the interior of which there projects a flap which on one of its sides is rigid with one of the main side walls of the box, this flap facing a different main wall of the same box to form therewith a pocket housing the illustrative leaflet. These boxes are not usable industrially because the flap which defines the pocket is connected to the box structure only along one side, so that the flap can freely flex (i.e. xe2x80x9copenxe2x80x9d) towards the interior of the box, so preventing mechanical insertion thereinto of bottles or other product packs to which the leaflet refers.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,147,856 (FIG. 3) and EP-A-0911266 (FIG. 2) describe boxes similar to those of the two aforementioned patents, but in which the flap defining the pocket in the box interior has its free end folded at 90xc2x0 on itself to form a tab (indicated by the reference numeral 42 in U.S. Pat. No. 3,147,856 and 16 in EP-A-0911266) which is glued to the adjacent main said wall of the box.
These boxes present serious drawbacks, in that as the said tab has to be glued to the main wall during the production of the boxes, which are despatched to the user firms as packs of identical boxes flattened together, it becomes impossible to produce such boxes. To better understand this problem, it will be assumed that the boxes of FIG. 3 of U.S. Pat. No. 3,147,856 and of FIG. 2 of EP-A-091126 have to be flattened together (as shown in FIG. 2 of U.S. Pat. No. 3,147,856) in order to be stacked and despatched to the user. If the tabs 42 and respectively 16 of the two boxes are glued to the adjacent main surfaces of the boxes, it is impossible to flatten the boxes without damaging them. Likewise, the boxes cannot be opened from their flattened condition to their formed condition ready for insertion of the products which they are to contain.
Vice versa, if the tabs 42 and respectively 16 are not glued, the same problems arise as stated for the two aforestated and already discussed patents.
Another problem of boxes with glued tabs consists of the fact that for their formation, the boxes require glue to be applied in different regions at successive times, thus slowing down production and increasing costs.
The main object of the present invention is to provide a box formed from a single piece of cardboard and defining a pocket for housing an extractable leaflet, in which the box is of very simple structure and construction and especially in which said pocket is defined by a main panel of the box itself and a supplementary panel which is prevented from overturning into the interior of the box by a tab forming part of the box itself.
This and further objects are attained by a box having the characteristics specified in the ensuing claim 1.
Preferably, the width of the tab of the supplementary panel and the width of the last main panel are less than the width of the main panel on which said tab is superposed in the final box.
A common requirement of all boxes of the aforesaid known type is to enable the final box user to easily withdraw the illustrative leaflet from and reinsert it into the box such that the leaflet can remain enclosed and protected within the box when its closure panel is closed.
To satisfy this requirement, WO 0020289 describes a box with an external pocket housing an illustrative leaflet which can be withdrawn from and reinserted into the pocket without having to open the box closure panels; this box has a necessarily greater volume than that required to protect the product which the box is intended to contain and protect, and moreover the leaflet can fall out of the pocket (and hence be lost) or can be withdrawn while the box is still closed and sealed.
GB-A-2277077 describes a box with an internal pocket housing the illustrative leaflet which can be withdrawn by removing a portion of a side wall of the box, in order to free an aperture positioned in correspondence with one of the ends of the leaflet, which can hence be withdrawn from the box even without opening its end panels; such a construction, after the removal of the said portion of its side wall, weakens the mechanical strength of the box, leaves the leaflet always visible, and makes reinsertion of the leaflet into the pocket very difficult, especially if the leaflet is of large dimensions and is folded several times on itself. Finally, as a portion of at least one side wall of the box has to be removed to withdraw the leaflet, writing relative to the product contained in the box cannot be printed on that portion, this representing a serious drawback because boxes of this type are of relatively small dimensions, their entire surface being used to print writing of various kinds.
EP-A-0911266, U.S. Pat. No. 3,099,381 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,147,856 describe boxes housing in their interior illustrative leaflets which can be withdrawn by tearing off a substantial part of a side wall, to hence completely free the leaflet which can be easily withdrawn but cannot then be rehoused, retained and preserved within the pocket which is no longer reclosable. There is also the aforesaid problem, i.e. that an entire side wall of the box cannot be used in practice for carrying writing which must always be readable by the box user, even after the leaflet has been withdrawn.
An object of the present invention is therefore to provide a box of the aforesaid type from which the leaflet can be withdrawn from its pocket and then be easily reinserted therein when the closure panel or lid is in the open or raised position, the entire outer surface of the box being usable for applying writing visible at all moments and in any condition.
These preferential objects are attained by a box having the characteristics specified in the accompanying claims from 3 to 5.
Known boxes present the drawback that when the user firm inserts the article which the box is to contain, using automatic machines operating at high speed, the article interferes with the illustrative leaflet or with the free edge of the supplementary panel which defines the pocket provided therein, in correspondence with that end or aperture of the box through which the article is inserted, with serious and obvious operational consequences.
A further object of the present invention is therefore to provide a box of the aforesaid type provided with elements which prevent the articles inserted into the box from interfering with the free edge of the panel defining the pocket and with the leaflet housed in the pocket.
This further object is attained by a box having the characteristics specified in the ensuing claims 6 to 9.
A hole is preferably provided in the panel defining said pocket to enable a portion of the illustrative leaflet housed in the box to be seen.
The invention also relates to the sheets in the form of a single piece of punched and crease-lined cardboard or the like, usable for forming boxes of the aforedefined type.